Copper is so 2005
A forewarning: This is going to be a seriously geeky post!
I’ve had a quite a few folks ask how the whole room is strung together, what Digidesign interfaces we are using etc. The short answer is none, as we’ve opted to use 3rd party solutions for getting audio into and out of Pro Tools, and have amassed a wealth of benefits and flexibility as a result.
The rig is centred on a distributed synchronous optical network called Optocore. They make various flavours of boxes that contain AES, MADI, or analog I/O, and all of the boxes interconnect using fibre optic cable into a redundant ring topology. You can have up to 700 meters between devices, with the ability to go up to 70 km in certain situations. The network (currently) will carry 512 channels of audio, 3 channels of video, a handful of serial control data, plus 100 Mbps ethernet. You can provide or accept word clock sync at any device, and each device has several serial ports as well as a video input and output. Since the entire ring is a distributed router, you can route any given input to as many outputs as you require - no mults or patch bay required.
In the control room, we have a MADI unit and an AES unit. The MADI unit has two sets of I/O, one of which is connected to the SSL Delta Link, allowing for 64 channels of I/O to Pro Tools. The other is connected to an SSL Alpha Link, providing 24 channels of analog conversion in each direction, plus an additional 24 channels of AES I/O.
The AES unit has 64 channels of connectivity, which you can mix and match as inputs or outputs in groups of 8 channels. It sounds like a lot of AES I/O, but when you have a large number of external digital devices (TC System 6000, multiple Dolby devices, etc.) it becomes necessary.
There’s an additional MADI unit in the Central Equipment Room providing interconnect with the central broadcast router, and bringing sync (synchronous video black and wordclock) into our setup.
Finally, we have a rolling stage rack that contains an AES base device. In that rack, we also have 20 channels of Neumann SolutionD digital microphone interfaces, 8 mic/line analog inputs, and 8 analog line outputs. All the interfaces and preamps are remote controllable from our suite, so despite the fact that the rack is nearly 300 metres away, we have full control as though they were in the same room as us, including mic pattern switching in the case of some of our digital mics. Very convenient when this room goes live to air during some music events, and the only cables that had to be run were a pair of fibres!
I don’t even want to think about what this would have taken to pull off in the days of using copper to string all of this gear together. Granted, trying to plan out and execute the routing matrix for all of the signals takes a bit of head scratching, but if you make a mistake or need to adjust to a new situation, all it takes is a click of the mouse - no soldering iron or patch cables required.
